Crawley Town boss John Yems says it's just the start of the journey...and I agree with him - opinion

In all honesty we knew that Bournemouth would provide much tougher opposition than mercurial Leeds United and so it turned out. Nobody anticipated, however, that we would face them with team selection hampered by a Covid-19 outbreak and that just a single training session would be all the preparation the lads had between the ties.

That may have accounted for the uncertain start that saw the home side rain in shots on Glenn Morris’ goal. His teammates do not call him Cat for nothing and the best keeper by far in League Two turned in another Man of the Match performance.

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He had no chance with the Cherries’ opener, an inch perfect curling strike from Jack Wilshere who was playing his first game in the FA Cup since the 2015 final. Crawley were outclassed but they simply would not accept that and showed the resilience on which success is based and which I reckon is the reason the manager is looking forward to the future.

The Reds also overcame some indifferent refereeing from Premier League official Andre Marriner which included the waving away of a stone cold penalty. The Reds were on top at the time and had nearly profited from a bizarre error by Bournemouth keeper Asmir Begovic. Undaunted they came again and equalised through a deft close range finish by Tom Nichols from Josh Wright’s flicked pass. That is his first assist but surely won’t be the last.

Bournemouth regained the lead through Josh King, who is looking for a multi million pound move away from Dean Court, and the better side won through but nobody would have guessed the gap between the clubs in league positions.

Under the most difficult circumstances Crawley Town showed their earlier success had been no fluke and now it is time to show the rest of League Two what they are all about. Their opportunity couldn’t be better as their next game is away at the table toppers Cambridge United. It’s time for Jack to topple the beanstalk.